Lindy’s pesto and Hospices de Beaune

 

The Hospices de Beaune, also known as ‘Hotel-Dieu’ was founded in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin, the chancellor to the Duke of Burgundy, ‘Phillipe le Bon’, and his wife Guigone de Salins, as a free hospital and refuge for the poor.
This was unique at this time as Rolin set out to make the building aesthetically beautiful on the inside and out, using the distinctive polychrome tiles that the region is famous for on the magnificent roof of the building.
He also had revolutionary ideas on standards of cleanliness and the provision of fresh food and drinking water from the hospices own well and well equipped kitchens. And he founded a training school for local women of good repute to nurse the patients and assist in the pharmacy where all the medicines were prepared, forming the religious order ‘Les soeurs Hospitialieres de Beaune’, who cared for patients here as late as the 1970’s.

 

Regular followers will know that I have the same ethos as Nicolas Rolin and like to prepare everything seasonal and fresh. So here is a fresh pesto that I made using basil from the garden.

Lindy’s Pesto

 

Ingredients
50 gm of pine nuts
50 gm of freshly grated parmesan cheese
A large bunch of fresh basil
1 large clove of garlic
3 tablespoons of olive oil + extra for storage
Freshly ground sea salt and black pepper to taste

Method
Lightly toast the pine nuts and leave to cool
Put the cooled pine nuts, parmesan and basil in a food processor and blend for 20 seconds son the slowest speed
Add the olive oil a tablespoon at a time, checking the consistency
Add a little salt and pepper to taste
What you do not use, can be stored in the fridge in a sealed jar, covered in a little extra oil and kept up to two weeks.
To make a lighter sauce for pasta, the pesto can be mixed with crème fraiche, to give a milder flavour and a more fluid consistency.